The Group

Title: The Group

Author: Sigge Eklund

Genre: Mystery, thriller

Publisher: Ithaka

Date Published: 2024

Book Length: 299

Star Rating: 3 *** I liked it it’s OK

About Book: When Hanna moves to Spain for an internship at the prestigious Prado gallery, she finds herself spending her days buried in the museum's stifling archives, and her nights alone in a tiny rented flat. Then one day she sees them; Tom, Samuel, and Leah. Glamorous and elegant, they are also foreigners in the city. But unlike her they are fabulously wealthy, their lives an endless whirl of creativity and hedonism. And when Hanna discovers an uncatalogued 17th century etching in the archive, she makes a decision which changes everything . . .From the sultry streets of Madrid to the gleaming world of Mediterranean luxury villas and exclusive art world parties, as Hanna gets closer to her deepest desire, the stakes mount ever higher. Intoxicating and unputdownable, The Group is a timeless story of hidden identity and obsession.

My Thoughts: The Group by Sigge Eklund is a mystery thriller but feels completely different from the usual mystery, thriller books I have read. It is about longing, greed, over indulgence and excess to the highest level. But it is also about wanting to fit in.

The main protagonist, Hanna, has a secret she is hiding, but it also feels that all of the people in the group have their own secrets as well. How far will Hanna go to fit in, the books prose at times is exciting, but I must say at times it felt a little laborious and I found myself speed reading to get through those periods.

The book is separated into months and takes you through the groups journey together, the chapters are short and that normally adds to the tension for me but in this instance it didn’t. Although the words on paper seem to express a joyous time the group are having the under lying feeling I got was the opposite which made the book feel sad.

In conclusion some exciting prose, although a little too long for me. This book is worth a read of you want something different to the usual mystery thriller books